A female plant of Cephalotaxus fortunei with just a few flowers (some open) at the tips of the twigs. So we have 3 young make plants in the Kennel Close and only one female.

Cephalotaxus fortunei

A bay hedge (Laurus nobilis) blasted to bits in Kennel Close by the east wind.

bay hedgebay hedge

Abies delavayi with sappy white new growth shoots.

Abies delavayiAbies delavayi

Sorbus aff. ligustrifolium flowering for the first time with us. Roy has seen this in China. Pale yellowish flowers.

Sarbus aff. ligustrifoliumSorbus aff. ligustrifolium

Photinia macrophylla with a few fruits still holding on the tree which should be evergreen but which has lost its leaves in the wind.

Photinia macrophylla

Roy with what I thought was a Gardenia. He says it’s a Photinia!

Roy with what I thought was a Gardenia

Photinia prionophylla (VK record tree) which might in fact be Photinia glomerata (the latter not often known in UK cultivation). Roy is adamant it’s the former and grows it at home.

Photinia prionophyllaPhotinia prionophylla

Euonymus morrismernsis with new growth and white scales on its older leaves.

Euonymus morrismernsisEuonymus morrismernsis

Rhododendron praestans just coming out.

Rhododendron praestans

Then the snow came down for 3 hours. Camellia ‘Lady Clare’ and Camellia ‘sodekashuki’ have flowers amid the snow! Roy is now happily stuck in the Wilson and Forrest archives making copious notes. The snow has some positive points.

2017 – CHW

Magnolia breeding at Caerhays lecture and the table all set up for action. Then a tour with the 21 attendees.

Then off to Tregrehan.First sighting of Euptelia pleiosperma in flower. Amazing rare new introduction. Flowers a little like an Acer negundo. Our plants go out next week.

Euptelia pleiospermaEuptelia pleiosperma

Illicium simonsii – one of many at Tregrehan with very different habits. This one especially good by the tennis court with the flowers standing proud rather than hidden by the leaves.

Illicium simonsiiIllicium simonsiiIllicium simonsii

Sarcocca wallichii with fruit very late on.

Sarcocca wallichii

Maesa ? in flower. Very rare with a leaf like ehrethia – very tender.

Maesa

Polyspora established as a tree which ours are not yet.

Polyspora

Schefflera taiwanense – nice bark.

Schefflera taiwanenseSchefflera taiwanense

Arbutus xalapensis with extraordinary bark. Entirely new species to me.

Arbutus xalapensisArbutus xalapensisArbutus xalapensis

Rhododendron barbatum – a true form as the barbs prove although the flower colour was varied.

Rhododendron barbatumRhododendron barbatumRhododendron barbatum

Acer sikkimensis in flower just beside the melliodendron which was out at the top.

Acer sikkimensis

Rhododendron davidii – new to me and a delicious pale colour.

Rhododendron davidiiRhododendron davidii

Rhododendron davidiiRhododendron davidii

Camellia ‘Mrs D W Davis’ with huge undamaged flowers.

Camellia ‘Mrs D W Davis’Camellia ‘Mrs D W Davis’

Our gardening weekend and the first of two tours here during the day. Present were:

Roger & Teresa Harvey

Rod & Mary White

Toby & Jennifer Greenbury

Mark & Justina McKeever

Susyn Andrews & Brian Schrire

Stephanie Harrod & Mike

Tom Hudson

Sir Richard & Mary Carew-Pole

Ludovic & Natalie de Montille

Humphrey & Miranda Ocean

Overcast but none of the forecast heavy rain. Magnolias probably a week past their absolute best except on the drive which is always later by seven to ten days.

Jaimie discovered a thrush’s nest with three eggs in laurel in the rookery last Friday.

thrush’s nest

The best new magnolia seen this year is Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x ‘J C Williams’. Superb as you can see on the Hovel Cart Road bank.

Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x ‘J C Williams’

Meliosma beaniana just coming into flower.

Meliosma beaniana

An unknown symplocos species for Susyn Andrews to identify for us.

unknown symplocos species

Rhododendron ‘Crossbill’ full out.

Rhododendron ‘Crossbill’Rhododendron ‘Crossbill’

2016 – CHW
An escape for an hour after a long hour of missing website pictures with Karol.At the end of Bond Street are two good Betula albosinensis ‘Bowling Green’. This is a graft from the original at Werrington on the bowling green which also features on the front cover of the latest edition of Hillier’s. There is a third in Penvergate. I bought these from Thornhayes nursery 20 to 25 years ago and gave two to Mike for Werrington. The tree was a numbered Wilson introduction I believe (W4109-1910). Amazing bark.

Betula albosinensis ‘Bowling Green’

A few magnolias stand out in Old Park viewed from the drive with ewes and lambs in White Styles field below.

magnolias stand out in Old Park

Magnolia ‘Rouged Alabaster’ is quite nice close up in a cold place but flowering well and has missed the north winds last week. In my mind I thought it was Magnolia ‘Sayonara’ which is similar.

Magnolia ‘Rouged Alabaster’

A rogue Rhododendron ponticum seedling is full out above the main fernery. Clearly one we and Defra missed a few years ago and one for the chop when we remember. Very early none the less – say eight to ten weeks!

Rhododendron ponticum

This is labelled Pseudotaxus chenii but it looks more like a podocarpus to me and it is nothing like the three small plants of this name in the greenhouse? Perhaps it is a pseudotsuga?

Pseudotaxus cheniiPseudotaxus chenii

I have not ever seen cones of Sciadopitys verticellata on the old plant at Burncoose but here, on Sinogrande Walk, we have a 2008 small tree doing exactly that in a hot, dry and exposed location. One from last year and more developing. At Burncoose the tree grows in full shade which it likes.

Sciadopitys verticellataSciadopitys verticellata

Liquidamber styraciflua ‘Oconee’ still has the odd leaf left. You can now see what an odd habit this tree has after last autumn’s explosion of colour in a ‘ball’.

Liquidamber styraciflua ‘Oconee’

Four newish camellias planted in 2008 on Sinogrande Walk which I had forgotten about but which are new to us and well worth propagating this summer:

Camellia ‘Candy Apple’

Camellia ‘Annie Waylam’ is a good paeony form and better than many. No idea who she was.

Camellia ‘Annie Waylam’Camellia ‘Annie Waylam’

Camellia ‘Midnight Magic’ is known and deservedly in the Burncoose catalogue. Slightly sparse flowerer here but a good dark red.

Camellia ‘Midnight Magic’

Camellia ‘Sundae’ has an odd trailing habit and fades off to pink but is sufficiently unusual to be worth growing. I thought it was Camellia ‘Bokukan’ from a distance but it is a much larger flower and a different colour.

Camellia ‘Sundae’Camellia ‘Sundae’

It is too cold a spot for Camellia ‘Spring Festival’ which is suffering and there are no flowers on Camellia ‘William Bartlett’ which were also planted here at the same time.

2015 – CHW
One of the most magical hours this evening in the garden one could ever imagine with Magnolia campbellii just about to go over but catching the fading sun on its topmost flowers 80 feet up. Everything else absolutely spot on. Hopefully it will stay calm and mild until Serena’s wedding on Saturday. Cutting flowers tomorrow with magnolias aplenty.

Most of the rhododendrons from Higher Quarry Nursery (50 to 60) planted in Old Park today and looking good. The main planting of the wild collected species from Orchid House Nursery will have now to wait until after the wedding. Room for several hundred plants yet.

MAGNOLIA ‘Lanarth’ seedling

The Magnolia ‘Lanarth’ seedling near Rookery Gate is coming out and (as previously said) needs a name. Jaimie assures me he planted it and not Philip in 1995. Apparently Philip bollocked us both 20 years ago for planting it where the flowers would ‘always’ be blown away. The flowers are very much intact today but slightly smaller than Bishop Michael in the quarry and not quite as frilly (ie more erect) or quite as dark but it is still an exceptional plant by anyone’s estimation.

What clots we have all been not to wander further when on planting days.

Area perfect for planting Rhododendrons.

There is a perfect large rhododendron planting area where we ripped out the laurel out above Mr Rogers Quarry. Good job Jaimie did not take quite everything from Higher Quarry Nursery to Old Park. Sort this tomorrow first thing.

Two male weirdos in the garden (first for the year) who claimed to have come all the way from Australia. Two chuck-outs after closing time after entering from not the proper entrances. Fired a few shots (at crows) plus a dozen dogs with ours and Jaimie’s in the garden may have seen them off by 6pm.

Three coaches due for two tours today but one of the three drivers in convoy refuses to turn in at Gorran High Lanes claiming our lanes are too narrow and takes the party shopping in Truro instead. New bus, idiot driver and imbecile passengers to put up with this but three incumbents get off and are rescued by Mary from the roadside and so come anyway. 21 do not. Four staff and house guide waste a good hour and a half over this bus driver pantomime so they (the very latecomers who did arrive) get a bloody quick lunch and tour. The perils of our narrow lanes despite spending at least £15k ourselves sorting Rescassa corner for much larger buses than those we had today. The driver of the bus who braved the lanes might have used the word ‘tosser’ about his colleague who would not but we absolutely cannot have any Jeremy Clarkson behaviour can we! It would have made my (lengthy and hectic) day to have met the shopping driver.

2001 – FJW
Early Magnolias at their best – wrecked by east wind 2 days back.

1979 – FJW
No Magnolias in flower. No leaf on Michelias or L pachyphylla. -75% leaf off Auklandii, Sinogrande, Gigantium.

1965 – FJW
Great frog activity in the moors.

1959 – FJW
Went to Lanarth with Tregunna. Mollicomata indescribable – the petals lose lustre as soon as they drop. Dombeyii and Davidii very fine plants.

1935 – JCW
Lutescens is fairly good. Reticulata fairly good flowers.

1929 – JCW
Lutescens is far the best thing we have. Neriiflorum, Thomsonii, Barbatum, Irroratum are all fairly good, but we lack flower buds. Daffodils are only just starting.

1901 – JCW
Narcissi ‘Sirius’ just shows colour, a few Ciliatums open, a good few useful seedlings to try, one flower of 25 open, no other incomps near it, forced open Sirius in heat from the bud for Cl.

1900 – JCW
The seedling Ciliatum opening, none of the things on the opposite page are nearly open except Sirius, Snow.

1898 – JCW
Golden Bell came out.

One thought on “18th March”

The Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’ x ‘J C Williams’ (see 18th of March) is this a seedling or a graft? I know that Michael Gottschalk from Kelkheim, Germany made several of this crosses. A few have been named already.
This is a very nice colour indeed.